How-To: Getting your favorite multimedia content to Xbox One

Microsoft launched their latest console, Xbox One, with the goal of taking over your living room. So far, that goal has been accomplished within my household; our cable routes through our Xbox One’s HDMI-IN port and everything else is streamed from local computers on the network or by popular services, such as Netflix and Amazon Instant Video. However, how do you stream everything?

There are a number of ways to get your favorite multimedia content from your Windows PC or local network to the big screen. At this moment, there is a “Media Player Preview” available for select Xbox One members that allows users to remotely access local or network storage for streaming, but while we wait for that, here are a few other solutions.

The “Play To” method

If you are looking to stream content from your Windows 8 PC, the easiest method is to right click the file you have in mind, select “Play To”, and then select the name of your Xbox One – by default, your Xbox One should be named “Xbox-SystemOS”, unless you have personalized it. This method will then launch Windows Media Player, which will stream the desired media to your console. It is important that you do not turn off your computer during streaming or the video will stop playing.

The “Charms Bar” method

An alternative method to stream to the Xbox One is by using the Windows 8 Charms Bar’s “Devices” option within select Windows 8 applications. For example, if you launch the popular YouTube client, Hyper for YouTube, you can navigate to the video you have in mind, and then select the “Devices” option as stated above, to stream the content via the “Play” option. It should be noted that not all video focused Windows 8 applications support this function, but some do, including the default Video application.

As of now, you can only initiate these streams from your PC, and the device must remain on during streaming. If you want to stream content from a network drive to your Xbox One, follow the “Play To” procedure above. In essence, this means that your network drive will stream to your Windows 8 PC, which will then stream it to the Xbox One, but this is the best solution everyone has access to at the current moment.

The upcoming “Media Player”

The new Media Player coming for Xbox One, will work very similar to the video player within Xbox 360; users will be able to launch the app and then select a network device or locally attached storage device to play content from. We have been able to play around with the Media Player, and it will sure be a warm welcome when it arrives from all users; until then, use the “Play To” and “Devices” option to fulfill your streaming needs!

Bonus: If you have content on your OneDrive, simply download the OneDrive app to your Xbox One, and you’ll be able to access a large majority of the content you have saved.